In today’s polling, we find the first of three appearances of a verse from the Acts of the Apostles. Is the Easter season enough of a “home field” advantage? We have the hint of the earliest structure of the modern Mass, liturgy of Word and Eucharist:

They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.

Consider Mark the evangelist, and his second of four entries in the contest, relaying to us the Lord’s powerful call to anyone who would be his disciple:

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

And the introduction to Second Isaiah’s mission of consolation. Or channeling John the Forerunner, ’cause this is another Old Testament passage that gets quoted in the New:

A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God.